can someone breakdown the tiers in open wheel racing these days. Would it be safe to say F1 is at the top then you get into these other sub categories? i.e Cart, Indy Car, Champ Car??? I am confused and not sure who is in what races these days.i.e Adrian Fernandez versus Castroneves or Carpentier or what cars are we watching at the Long Beach Grand Prix? Who backs that race? Am I the only one that missed something. I just dont remember it being this complicated and segmented..... Lost in San Diego
Yes, you have missed something, and that is that there are no clearly defined "tiers". If you want to put the various catagories in boxes that's fine, but it will be entirely your opinion. There are many many open-wheel formulae worldwide, all having their respective pros and cons.
I think what you refering to is the Champcar/IRL split. Way too complicated to get into but let's just say money and Tony George being an ******* had a lot to do with it. Champcar is running at long beach. The IRL is doing some road courses this year as well.
Amen to that. Indycars are normally aspirated hence the huge air intake box behind the driver's head. CART runs turbos, no big air intake box, but the visible pop off valve to control boost pressure. CART does road, street and oval racing and uses significantly different wings (especially in front) on road racing vs ovals. A F1 outruns both, CART and IRL. Heck, a F1 outruns anything short of something jet engine propelled at Bonneville.
An F1 car will outrun and IRL car easily. A champ car set up for a superspeedway will only lose on accelartion but will top out at and higher speed than an F1 car. The closed course record for a champcar around a oval is something like 241 average which would mean about 250 going into the corners, I doubt an F1 car will top out that high. I think power wise it's something like 750 for the champcar and around 900 for an F1 car. I could give a crap about the IRL car.
thanks for differeniating the those car types. I like the GT racing and F1 myslef. I cant find the strength to get into NASCAR. Not much for domestic brands. MM
F1's laptimes in Montreal were worlds faster than Champ car's. No surprise because of the difference in hp, weight and overall technology (tires, breaks). However you talk about the superspeedway and CART always called itself the fastest racing on Earth. And since nobody ever took a F1 to a flat out configuration (basically horizontal wings) on an oval, we don't really know. My feeling is, that it would still go faster than a CART, but I have nothing to back that up. IRL used to be a lowly show, but after all the talents transferred over from CART and now that they're even trying road racing, I think it got a lot more interesting.
I'm not 100% sure, but I think some F1 cars hit 220 last year at some of the tracks straights. Had they used longer gears and less downforce, they could probably hit 250, too.
When I was in Montreal in 2003 for F1, I remember Ralf Schumacher was clocked at the end of the straigth at 220 mph and I remember at the old Hockemhiem circuit Hakkinen Mclaren was clocked at 368 km(231). I also remember from Micheal Schumacher's interview on 60 minutes, he said if you put minimal downforce on the F1 cars they would do about 275 mph maybe more.
Personally, while F1 is my passion, there is no better racing on the planet than the IRL. Don't laugh... but just try to keep your heart in your chest as you watch 10 cars running 220+ separated by just inches. And did you see the St. Pete race? Not bad at all.
I will be at long beach this weekend watching the Champ Cars. Should be interesting. I like the street courses MM
F1 cars weigh approx. 100 kilos less than a Champ Car.They are more nimble and their NA engines make them more responsive. I would assume the grooved tires on F1 cars are so advanced nowadays that they would outperform the slick tires used on Champ cars. When you factor in downforce, weight, brakes, and semi-automatic gear change the F1 cars outpace the CART racers by a few seconds. Before the Champ cars were castrated with less boost and engine rules a few years ago they were making close to 1000 hp. The Reynard Mercedes of Penske Racing at the time had well over 900 hp. Now if an F1 car was setup with a flat undertray,correct gearing, almost zero wing and the nose reconfigured it wouldn't be too hard for the Formula car to top 230+ in the same environment. Champ cars do have and even more so back in the late 90's a distinct torque advantage. F1 cars lack the relative torque outputs from the boosted engine, and while may produce similar horsepower, I think in a possible straight line sprint it would be at a disadvantage. *note- Mauricio Gugelmin had a practice lap avg. of 242.3 mph at the Michigan 500 some years ago. At Fontana Jimmy Vasser trapped at 245, and Paul Tracy ran through the traps at 256.948 mph at Michigan as well.
An F1 car couldn't go as fast because of the flat bottom. There was talk about changing the champcar chassis rules to make the car flat bottom, and some drivers that had driven a flat bottom car on a superspeedway said it would make the car far too unstable. While it might make the power to go faster, you most likely never reach that limit because it would be impossible to drive. Plus a turbo tend to make more power at higher rpms which would improve top end. I still refuse to watch the IRL because of what Tony ****ing George did to CART. The only way i would watch was if they brought Senna back from the dead and Prost and Mansell would unretire. Aint gonna happen.
